Denver Brings the West to the Title Game

PHILADELPHIA — None of the traditional motivational ploys — the guest speakers and the playoff beards — had worked in the past, so Coach Bill Tierney cut it out, all of it.

No speakers, no beards — this was Denver’s agnostic approach to its fourth trip to the N.C.A.A. men’s lacrosse Final Four in five seasons. The focus remained on the team, the task at hand and a game plan that Tierney believed could finally get him into a national title game with the Pioneers, a first for a program he had essentially renovated from the studs after arriving six years ago.

And suddenly, it was crumbling before his eyes. A four-goal lead, with four minutes remaining, had disappeared. The Notre Dame attack had morphed into something relentless, and now the miserable, sinking thought had begun to make its familiar way through Tierney’s wearied mind: not again.

“You’re kind of bewildered a little bit,” Tierney, 62, said.

His rescue arrived in overtime, on a broken play, in which the ball was supposed to have been in Zach Miller’s hands but wound up with Wesley Berg, who found a way to make it work. He created an opening, whistled off a shot and flung his stick high into the sky after seeing the ball pass into the net.

Tierney punched at the air, shaking the Final Four monkey off his back. With Denver’s 11-10 overtime win over top-seeded Notre Dame at Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday afternoon, he has a chance at his first title since 2001, when he won the last of his six championships as the coach at Princeton.

He had reshaped the horizon of Division I lacrosse with his ambitious move to Denver in 2009, transforming a program that had never won an N.C.A.A. tournament game into one of the sport’s indisputable powerhouses. He sent the message that it was possible to succeed in lacrosse in the West, out on the fringes, despite the game’s traditionally Eastern magnetism.

But until Saturday, there was a lid on his breakthrough success at Denver, and an echelon he had repeatedly missed. He still sought the chance, just the chance, to play one game for the national title.

“I think a lot was made out of this,” Tierney said of his three previous Final Four appearances, adding sardonically, “We were a bad program because we didn’t make it until Monday.”

But, Tierney said, “it’s certainly a little relieving.”

Denver will face No. 6-seeded Maryland, which outlasted Johns Hopkins, 12-11, in a thrilling second semifinal game. Hopkins scored five consecutive goals to tie the game at 10-10 early in the fourth quarter. Then, with Johns Hopkins trailing by 1, Maryland’s Kyle Bernlohr saved Joel Tinney’s shot with the butt end of his stick, protecting the win.

The first game took its time developing, with both teams playing a lethargic brand of lacrosse. The Pioneers were leading by 5-4 in the waning seconds of the third quarter when Denver’s goalie, Ryan LaPlante, made a high save and fired quickly to Mike Riis, a senior long-stick midfielder who was streaking up the center of the field.

Riis met little resistance as he carried the ball into the Irish zone, flung himself forward from about 10 feet out and scored with 0.9 of a second remaining in the period.

It was an energizing play for Denver, which rattled off three more scores to pull ahead by 9-5 with 5 minutes 29 seconds left. A minute later, Berg made a play that needed to be viewed in slow motion to appreciate, flinging a shot over his left shoulder, behind his back and between the goalie’s legs to give Denver the 10-6 advantage.

“I lost my balance there, and I thought, Just try to get it on net,” Berg said.

There was 4:23 left, but rather than savor a lead that would seemingly put them in their first championship game, the Pioneers were desperately figuring out how to preserve it. Sergio Perkovic — a sophomore midfielder who, at 6 feet 4 inches, is hard to lose on a lacrosse field — unleashed a torrent of offense, scoring five goals in six minutes, including three in a row to bring the Irish to within 1, at 10-9, with two minutes remaining.

“Perkovic is an animal,” Tierney said.

After Denver turned the ball over, Notre Dame set up a final play with 22.8 seconds left. The defense keyed on Perkovic, Conor Doyle and Matt Kavanagh, and so the ball found Nick Ossello, who forced a matchup with a short-stick defender, Christian Thomas, and beat him to the right. He found space and tied the game with nine seconds remaining.

“It’s tough, letting four goals in as a defense in four minutes,” goalie LaPlante said. “They had the complete momentum going into overtime.”

But momentum, in lacrosse, is only as good as the next face-off. Denver’s Trevor Baptiste won one for the 15th time in 24 chances, and while Notre Dame had an opportunity after forcing a turnover, the Irish wound up giving the ball right back.

Berg and the Pioneers focused on one idea: not again.

Correction:

An article in some editions last Sunday about victories by Denver and Maryland in the semifinals of the N.C.A.A. men’s lacrosse tournament referred incorrectly to Denver Coach Bill Tierney’s appearance in the national title game in 2001. It was the last time he won a championship, not the last time he reached the title game. (He reached the national championship game in 2002 with Princeton, which lost to Syracuse.)

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